A body of work in McNay sculpture exhibit

Updated 3:02 pm, Saturday, April 6, 2013

Antonin Mercie's “Gloria Victis!” was one of the most famous sculptures of late 19th-century France.

Antonin Mercie's “Gloria Victis!” was one of the most famous sculptures of late 19th-century France.

Photo: Photos Courtesy McNay Art Museum

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Rodin's famous "Burghers of Calis" is represented in "The Human Face and Form."

Rodin's famous "Burghers of Calis" is represented in "The Human Face and Form."

Photo: Courtesy

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Nicolas Africano's cast-glass bust "Patience" is featured in "The Human Face and Form" at the McNay.

Nicolas Africano's cast-glass bust "Patience" is featured in "The Human Face and Form" at the McNay.

Photo: Courtesy McNay Art Museum

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William Zorach's 1932 bronze "Torso -- Lena" is a graceful depiction of the female figure included in "The Human Face and Form" at the McNay.

William Zorach's 1932 bronze "Torso -- Lena" is a graceful depiction of the female figure included in "The Human Face and Form" at the McNay.

Photo: Courtesy McNay Art Museum

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"The Human Face and Form" at the McNay Art Museum features busts, fragmentary figures and standing figures by artists such as Germaine Richier, Richmond Barthe and Philip Evett.

"The Human Face and Form" at the McNay Art Museum features busts, fragmentary figures and standing figures by artists such as Germaine Richier, Richmond Barthe and Philip Evett.

Photo: Courtesy McNay Art Museum

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Busts by Albert-Ernest Carrier-Beleuse (left) and Alberto Giacometti (right) as well as by William Artis (background right) greet visitors to the McNay exhibition "The Human Face and Form."

Busts by Albert-Ernest Carrier-Beleuse (left) and Alberto Giacometti (right) as well as by William Artis (background right) greet visitors to the McNay exhibition "The Human Face and Form."

Photo: Courtesy McNay Art Museum

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A body of work in McNay sculpture exhibit

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“The old saw in the museum world is that sculpture is what you hang your hat on when you come to look at the paintings,” William Chiego says with a chuckle.

Chiego, director of the McNay Art Museum, is hosting a tour of an exhibition that has been in his mind's eye for at least a decade. He is the exception to the rule — or old saw.

In his 20 years at the McNay, Chiego has made sculpture a particular focus of his tenure. Under his watch, the museum has acquired more than 100 works of sculpture.

“That's because I love it,” Chiego said, “and I felt that it's an area that's been neglected by a lot of American museums.

“When I got here I realized the museum hadn't acquired sculpture in eons, since the '50s, and that was partly because of space and partly because sculptors tend not to get the popular attention that painters do. So I began acquiring sculpture to complement the paintings collection.”

Nearly 40 sculptural works, most from the McNay collection but a few borrowed from local collectors Harmon and Harriet Kelley, comprise an illuminating look at “The Human Face and Form,” an exhibition that divulges the inner secrets of its subject matter in the natural light of the McNay's Stieren Center. It runs through May 19.

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“This is a show I've been planning, literally, for years,” Chiego said.

The steel-and-glass Stieren, opened in 2008, with its adaptable lighting and clean space made it possible. Before, the works were spread throughout the various museum galleries or in storage.

Rather than organize the exhibition chronologically — the work ranges from French Romantic Pierre-Jean David d'Angers' dramatic 1837 gilded bronze rendering of the Greek general and statesman Philopoemen to American artist Kiki Smith's 2005 porcelain Alice-in-Wonderland-like “Woman with Arm Raised” — Chiego decided to frame it in themes embodying ways sculptors have dealt with the human form over the past 200 years.

These range from Nicolas Africano's incandescent 1999 cast-glass bust “Patience” to fragmentary figures by Aristide Maillol, William Zorach and the Hill Country English gentleman artist Philip Evett, working here in limestone, rather than his customary wood. Polish artist Magdalena Abakanowicz's 1990 “Seated Figure on Iron Frame,” made of resinated burlap, is especially poignant, given that the artist endured the Nazi occupation of Warsaw as a young child.

The exhibition also features works depicting two figures, either loving or fighting, including the director's recent anniversary purchase, Antonin Mercié's “Gloria Victis!” — a bronze depicting a winged woman supporting a dying soldier grasping a sword.

Chiego said the work, “one of the most admired, famous sculptures of late 19th-century France,” originally was meant to show the personification of Fame upholding a victorious soldier. But Mercié got ahead of himself. When he received news that France had surrendered to Prussia, ending the bloody Franco-Prussian War, he transformed the victorious soldier to a defeated one. Scholar Peter Fusco wrote that “the stirring group was just what was needed to console a nation which had so recently suffered a bitter loss.”

Art can help heal wounds, and “Human Face and Form” is a celebration of the body full of grace and passion.